David Stern cancels all NBA games in November, what’s next for the league
Since the National Basketball Association lockout took its first breath on 1st July, 2011 on the back of the expiration of the previous Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), one perception was that the NBA owners and
players association will be forced to quickly resolve the labour dispute after experiencing some ugly consequences of the work stoppage.
However, the perception was completely overruled when the NBA lockout went on to dismantle the 2011-2012 season after the free agency was postponed, Rookie Transition Program was cancelled and the Las Vegas Summer League was suspended.
The first hurtful consequence of the lockout came in the shape of the abandonment of the preseason games which followed the cancellation of the first two weeks of regular season games which were scheduled to start on 1st
November. After sacrificing so much, it was expected that now both the parties will come up with the solution to prevent any more games from getting cancelled.
With the sheer disappointment from the last week’s meeting, both the parties decided to resume negotiation this week and also made some progress on the salary cap issue which brought some hope. However, on brining the division
of Basketball Related Income (BRI) back on the table on Friday, NBA owners and players association suddenly got stuck on both the issues once again.
The owners remained persistent on the 50-50 split however the players association reduced one more percent to their share and were unwilling to accept anything less than 52 percent. As a result, the NBA Commissionaire David Stern
decided to cancel all NBA games in November.
On the 120th day of the lockout, Stern declared that there is no possibility to have a complete season now as first month of the regular season is called off.
“It’s not practical, possible or prudent to have a full season now. We’re going to have to recalculate how bad the damage is,” Stern said. “The next offer will reflect the extraordinary losses that are piling up now.” Stern said.
The executive director of the players association Billy Hunter said that apart from imposing a hard salary cap, the owners also want a good share in BRI, which is not called negotiating in good faith.
“We don’t want a hard cap any kind of way, either an obvious hard cap or a hard cap that may not be as obvious to most people but we know it works like a hard cap. And so you get there, and then all of a sudden they say, ‘Well,
we also have to have our number.’ And you say, ‘Well wait a minute, you’re not negotiating in good faith.” Hunter said.
Considering that both the parties are spaced out once again, what’s next for NBA? The idea of a complete season wipe out has now started to look like a reality as any further delays in making a settlement is what the league will
be reaching towards.
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